halogen (i could be a shadow)
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Their third kiss is the only one that means anything to him.


notes: so, everyone and their mother has already done this fic? in my defense, i started as soon as i finished watching the locomotive manipulation, i'm just really fucking lazy. oh, and one day i will write a story where sheldon isn't tortured by his own genius. today is not that day.

* * *

Alone, Sheldon lies atop his bed, watching the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. He is fully clothed, hasn't brushed his teeth or unpacked his pajamas. Instead, he thinks. Of trains, of missing-fingered banjo players, of chocolate. Of _Amy_.

His orderly brain is chaos. Absolute chaos. One, two, three, steady breaths, control your heartrate, but the old Kohlinahr has never been more useless. He is not as displeased by this as he should be, and that frightens him. A lifetime's worth of neuroses are at stake, after all.

He kissed her out of spite, he reminds himself; sheer, infuriated spite. If she wanted romance, she'd get what she damn well asked for. Imagine, the nerve of tricking him into acting like a besotted teenager under the guise of a field trip! And then the hurt painted across her (symmetrical, all-too-feminine) face, as if _she_ were the wronged party, just pushed him straight over the edge. A single, quick peck would hopefully drive her to share his opinions on the unsantiary qualities of saliva-swapping, or at least shut her up for a few moments.

The last thing he expected was to enjoy it. That was not part of the (admittedly rudimentary) plan.

Slowly, he raises his fingers to his mouth, traces thin, cracked lips. It's all muscle memory now, and he cannot bring himself to forget the wet, slick heat, the flutter of her pulse, a warm hand pressed against his side. Her blown pupils once she disengaged, obviously aroused and a little messy-haired. She smelled like coconut.

This woman- Amy, three letters in her name, the first complete Greek number- has wormed deep beneath his skin. And it terrifies him, how primal his desires have turned. He doesn't want a relationship of minds, when they had a sterile rapport between separate computer screens, doesn't want to occasionally note the pleasing curve of her undulant neck as it peeks out from her lab coat.

He wants to kiss her. Again.

Sheldon is thirty. When his father was his age, he already had a wife and children, no matter how laxly he took the responsibility- he still bears the scars of how his father treated females, how his brother learned to. So Amy he kept safe up on a pedestal, away from where he could harm her (or the opposite). Amy, he kept unobtainable, remote, quelling her every attempt at seeing his bared soul or bared instincts.

But he kissed her. He has altered that paradigm irrevocably.

_And are all those things equal to you?_ Leonard's incredulous voice echoes. He doesn't ever act on _instinct_ and appreciate the result- loathes entropy, disorder. His entire life is meticulously planned, from his spot on the couch (0,0) to his takeout schedule. There is no spare room in that life, especially for the base, dirty _sex_ that preoccupies the plebeians' thoughts- he is Sheldon Lee Cooper, theoretical physicist, child prodigy, one of the most gifted men walking the earth. Equations to solve, the vast purity of mathematics to appreciate, a veil to rip off Mother Nature's face. No woman- not nymphomaniacal Elizabeth, not sly, buxom Penny, not coldly reasoned Mrs. Hofstadter- has penetrated these defenses.

_Look at what you've done to me._

He loves her so strongly that it's like he's drowning, like he's making desperate, hopeless efforts at drawing breath. First she distracted him from his work- made his work worse than _Kripke's_- and now he's kissing her. This is _serious_. Fuck, he thinks, tripping over the harsh word but finding none more suitable. Fuck. Fuck. So much for the elite, erudite homo novus- no, he has become Samson and she Delilah.

(The worn pages of his mother's Bible never taught him that corruption could be this good.)

With a sigh, he slams his face into the pillow. This is a fever- fire in his belly, sweat beading on his brow. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Oh, Amy Farrah Fowler. How she's slayed him.

One, two, three, and he cannot just see her as a goddess, look don't touch. His hand slips past his waistband. He is alone, and it is very dark, and he hates himself for it, but he thinks of Amy.


End file.
